WBI Founders

Our 17 Year Record

From June 1997 until the present, the Namies have led the first and only U.S. organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying that combines help for individuals via our websites & over 10,000 consultations, telephone coaching, conducting & popularizing scientific research, authoring books, producing education DVDs, leading training for professionals-unions-employers, coordinating national legislative advocacy, and providing consulting solutions for organizations. We proudly helped create the U.S. Academy of Workplace Bullying, Mobbing & Abuse.

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Posts Tagged ‘school bullying’

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines bullying as:
• any unwanted aggressive behavior(s)
• by another youth or group of youths who are not siblings or current dating partners
• that involves an observed or perceived power imbalance and
• is repeated multiple times or is highly likely to be repeated.

Bullying may inflict harm or distress on the targeted youth including physical, psychological, social, or educational harm. A young person can be a perpetrator, a victim, or both (also known as “bully/victim”).

Bullying can occur in-person and through technology. Electronic aggression or cyber-bullying is bullying that happens through email, chat rooms, instant message, a website, text message, or social media.

In addition, the CDC remarked

School-based bullying prevention programs are widely implemented but not always evaluated. However, research suggests promising program elements include:

• Improving supervision of students

• Using school rules and behavior management techniques in the classroom and throughout the school to detect and address bullying by providing consequences for bullying

• Having a whole school anti-bullying policy, and enforcing that policy consistently

• Promoting cooperation among different professionals and between school staff and parents

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WBI offers “whole school solutions” that address both youth and adult (workplace) bullying in schools.

WBI Note: This article refers to bullying of children. However, earlier in 2012, WBI conducted a study on the effectiveness of various “fight back” strategies people advise bullied targets to adopt. All strategies are dismal failures. Targets don’t fail; institutions don’t allow them to succeed. Read about our study.

(CNN) — Fall is upon us, and that means the school year is in full swing. Along with the stress of homework assignments and extracurricular activities, unfortunately some students bear an additional burden — bullying. October is National Bullying Prevention Awareness Month, pushing the issue to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness.

Educators and legislators are under pressure to prevent bullying, and many schools are implementing programs such as A Classroom of Difference, Steps to Respect and Positive Behavior Intervention and Supports that teach empathy, interpersonal skills and respect for those who don’t fit into the mainstream.

But not everyone agrees with this approach to managing bullying. There are vocal groups of naysayers who believe that focusing on social emotional skills training and urging students to be accepting of those who are different is leading to the weakening of America. They argue that bullying is really a form of socialization, asserting that kids who do not conform to society’s expectations are bringing on their own troubles.

And when a child does end up being bullied, this same group of people advises that the victims should just fight back.

“Kids routinely speak about one another with racist, classist, and other forms of prejudice that objectify others. Girls get called “slut” and “whore,” boys get called “gay,” white poor people are called “white trash” and the list goes on. Increasing one’s social status by putting others down is par for the course. Broadcasting secrets or sexual images of each other is common and part of the culture of deceit, mistrust and cold clawing for recognition that students learn is necessary for social survival … But individualizing the problem is just another way of avoiding it.“

Everyone already knows of the common stereotype, how bullies pick on the weakest kid on the playground. It is often used to justify the act of bullying itself, like a form of social Darwinism that makes it okay to commit acts of assault on another person. The Workplace Bullying Institute has found in its research that workplace bullies actually target the strongest, most capable employees. Particularly the ones who represent a threat to an incompetent manager’s own job. But a new CNN study shows this is also true of schoolyard bullies in their quest for social dominance.

This begs the question: do these kids grow up to be workplace bullies, or does the workplace make its own class of bullies? Tell us what you think in the comments section.

New York (CNN) — A new study commissioned by CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360°” found that the stereotype of the schoolyard bully preying on the weak doesn’t reflect reality in schools.

Instead, the research shows that many students are involved in “social combat” — a constant verbal, physical and cyber fight to the top of the school social hierarchy.

On May 3, Massachusetts Gov. Patrick signed into law (with much fanfare) S2404, a bill that languished until two headline-grabbing student suicides were traced to bullying by other students. Middle school student Carl Walker-Hoover hanged himself in 2009 and high school student Phoebe Prince did the same in Jan. 2010. Legislation was reflexively proposed to hold adults (educators, paraprofessionals, administrators, school nurses, cafeteria workers, etc.) responsible for stopping bullying when they see it or at least report it to the school principal. The principal, in turn, can decide to call or not to call law enforcement.